What powers your kitchen appliances?

[KennethT]

15 minutes ago, weinoo said:

 

In your new building, you're able to use 240V stuff?

 

 

My building has no gas service, so everything is electric.  A standard US electric oven uses both 240V (for the heating elements) and 120V (for the controls/convection fan, etc).  I decided not to get a standard US oven, which typically utilizes a 240V 40 or 50A circuit breaker (I use my CSO - there's only 2 of us - the amount of times I really need a full size oven I can count on one hand, especially since we're no longer having big parties and I'm cooking for liek 12 people at once or apps for 40) - so, instead, I had them install a 240V 30A breaker that just feeds a duplex 240V outlet (with 6-20R receptacles) which I will use for 2 240V induction burners.  I got one 3500W cheap one - great for bringing a pot of water to boil, etc. and I'm going to get a Vollrath 2600W fancy induction unit which you can vary the power level in 1% increments or use temp mode and set a temp - it has both a pan sensor (supposedly the most accurate in the industry) and also a liquid probe which will be great for deep frying.  it's like a control freak but 1/2 the price.  They make it in 3500 and 4600W power levels, but I don't think it's necessary to have 2 super high power ones.  I think the 2600W one will still be more powerful than the gas burner in my old apartment.   Finally, I got a 15,000BTU butane burner (liek what she uses on hot thai kitchen) and I've used it a couple times - it was great for stir frying in the wok (albeit a little light, so it wants to move around a bit) but was almost too powerful for simmering a curry - in fact, I haven't taken it past 1/2 power yet because it makes so much heat, the sauce splatters all over.

[weinoo]

Interesting.  As I may have mentioned previously, I  would have had to run electric up 15 floors to power up my apartment for 240V (in case I wanted Dual Fuel or induction), and it was prohibitively expensive. At the same time, we're submetered for electric but gas/heat/hot water included in the maintenance, so it was also cost effective in more ways than one.

 

Are you a condo or coop in the new place?

 

 

[KennethT]

1 minute ago, weinoo said:

Interesting.  As I may have mentioned previously, I  would have had to run electric up 15 floors to power up my apartment for 240V (in case I wanted Dual Fuel or induction), and it was prohibitively expensive. At the same time, we're submetered for electric but gas/heat/hot water included in the maintenance, so it was also cost effective in more ways than one.

 

Are you a condo or coop in the new place?

 

 

Yeah, I'm pretty happy with the electric service, but it would have to be pretty beefy to get away with having no gas service.  Our building is a 100 year old industrial building - it used to be a tailoring company.  It was converted to coop residential units in the late 70s/early 80s.  So I imagine that the building already had a powerful main feed to run the industrial sewing machines,etc.  Hot water, heat and A/C is included in our maintenance (which is pretty low) - each apartment has a fan coil unit that takes heated/chilled water from the roof - although I gather they'll be changing over to a heat pump system soon.  Before I demo'd it, the apartment had a 20 year old electric coil top range.  When I was growing up, my parents had a coil top electric range and I hated cooking on it, so I was really happy to get that thing out of there - I wound up giving it to one of the maintenance guys who wanted it along with all of the kitchen cabinets.